The poem
Poem: Camma
(To Ellen Terry)
As one who poring on a Grecian urn Scans the fair shapes some Attic hand hath made, God with slim goddess, goodly man with maid, And for their beauty's sake is loth to turn And face the obvious day, must I not yearn For many a secret moon of indolent bliss, When in midmost shrine of Artemis I see thee standing, antique-limbed, and stern?
And yet - methinks I'd rather see thee play That serpent of old Nile, whose witchery Made Emperors drunken, - come, great Egypt, shake Our stage with all thy mimic pageants! Nay, I am grown sick of unreal passions, make The world thine Actium, me thine Anthony!